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Sensitivity Analysis Often in engineering analysis, we are not only interested in predicting the performance of a vehicle, product, etc, but we are also concerned with the sensitivity of the predicted performance to changes in the design and/or errors in the analysis. The quantification of the sensitivity to these sources of variability is called sensitivity analysis. Let’s make this more concrete using an example. Suppose we are interested in predicting the take off distance of an aircraft. From Anderson’s, Intro. To Flight, an estimate for take-off distance is given by Eqn (6.104): SLO1.44W 2gUfSCL7max To make the example concrete, let’s consider the jet aircraft CJ-1 described by Anderson. In that case, the conditions were: S318 ft 2Uf0.002377 slugs / ft 3 @ sea levelg32.2 ft / s 2T7300 lbsW19815lbsCL1.0max Thus, under these “nominal” conditions: 1.44 19815 2 SLO 32.2 0.002377 318 1 .0 7300 S LO 3182 ft @ nominal conditions Suppose that we were not confident of the C L max value and suspected that it might be ±0.1 from nominal. That is, 0.9 CLmax 1.1 Sensitivity Analysis Also, let’s suppose that the weight of the aircraft may need to be increased for a higher load. Specifically, let’s consider a 10% weight increase: Linear sensitivity analysis Nonlinear sensitivity analysis (i.e. re-evaluation) They both have their own advantage and disadvantages. The choice is often made based on the problem and the tools available. We’ll look at both options. Linear Sensitivity Analysis Linear sensitivity based on Taylor series approximations. Suppose we were interested in the variation of S LO with w CLmaxThen: SLO (CLCL ,W W ) #maxmaxS(C)wSLOCwSLOWLOLmaxwCLLmaxwWmaxThat is, the change in S LO is:S{wS LOCwS LOWLOwCLLmaxwWmaxTh